Teachers’ SelfSelf-efficacy Beliefs and the development of ESL
Autonomous Teachers’
Teachers’ in Indonesia1
Basikin
Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta
(basikin@gmail.com)
Summary:
Decentralization of educational decision-making potentially provides teachers
with power and autonomy to make decisions concerning the school and classroom
teaching practices. However, especially when teachers are not ready to act on the
autonomy and to deal with challenges they face, it might also create a new set of
problems. There is the possibility that wider teacher autonomy might promote confusion
instead of educational improvement.
This paper argues that many English teachers in Indonesia are not ready to, and
perhaps are unable to act autonomously in their professional lives. Previously teachers
have been used to applying whatever the central government has asked them to
implement through a prescribed curriculum, Curriculum 1994. These existing cultural
practices did not encourage teacher autonomy. Therefore, now that the opportunity is
widely available for teachers to have the power to decide what curriculum materials to
bring into the classroom, teachers are not comfortable exercising this newly found
autonomy. Thus, there is no guarantee that autonomy alone will necessarily contribute to
improving the quality of the teaching that teachers provide on a daily basis.
It is therefore suggested that if teachers are to act confidently and exercise their
autonomy in curricular decision-making, then their self-efficacy beliefs are of importance,
especially if they are to own the reform agenda. Self-efficacy beliefs are instrumental in
affecting the effort teachers put into teaching, in setting goals, and in the aspiration
teachers have for themselves and their students. Furthermore, a high sense of efficacy is
influential in the teachers’ level of teaching enthusiasm (Allinder, 1994; Guskey, 1984;
Pajares, 2002), commitment to teaching (Coladarci, 1992), with highly efficacious
teachers tending to exercise higher levels of planning and organization (Allinder, 1994).
As well as being persistent in dealing with problems and being more resilient in the face
of setbacks (Ashton & Webb, 1986), they are more open to new ideas and willing to
experiment with new methods (Guskey, 1988; Stein & Wang, 1988; Tschannen-Moran &
Hoy, 2001) Thus, how to build a high sense of efficacy among English teachers and how
these beliefs contribute to teachers’ autonomy are important questions. (347 words)
Key words: self-efficacy beliefs, teachers’ self efficacy beliefs, teachers’ autonomy
1
Presented in the TEFLIN Conference 2006, Satyawacana University - Salatiga
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A. Introduction
During the last decade, Education system of Indonesia has been at its important
stage, more particularly in relation to the recent changes in curriculum. This stage has
actually been initiated in the former GBHN 1999 that stressed the importance of
decentralization and the need for diversification in education. Efforts to distribute the
authority in conducting education to local institutions are in fact not new in education
system in Indonesia. Bjork (2003) indicates that the government of Indonesia, at that time
the Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC), had already undertaken this distribution
of authority in 1994 by issuing what known as the Local Content Curriculum. This
curriculum required the local institutions, in this case primary and secondary schools, to
allocate 20% of the schooling hours to deal with locally-designed subject matter. Due to
the curricular requirement, there were a number of school subjects that were specifically
designed to fit the special local characteristics of both the geographical and cultural
aspects of the society in which the schools were located.
Decentralization in education in Indonesia is even more important with the
introduction and implementation of Curriculum 2004, in which there is further shifting
from central control to the local context (Depdiknas, 2003). This new curriculum
prescribes only the Competency Standards, Basic Competencies and the Assessment
system, with the decision in the development and use of materials and learning
experiences being given to schools, and teachers in particular. The roles of schools and
teachers are even more crucial with the 2006 change to the curriculum with the
introduction of Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP 2006) in which schools, in
this case school principal and teachers, together with experts, have to design and develop
their own curriculum. This school-specific curriculum should be developed based on the
guidance with respect to the graduate competence standards and content standards issued
by the National Board for Education Standards (BNSP).
Although there are still other problems with the curriculum change, changes in
education systems seem to indicate the rise in the perceived central roles of teachers in
relation to the formation and development of school curricula.
Furthermore, with the
wide mandate given to teachers, it is expected to increase the quality of education in
Indonesia. On the other hand, this wide mandate also bears consequences on teachers.
They are expected to have more open access in decision making and have stronger sense
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of autonomy, and more importantly are able to act properly on the autonomy they have
now acquired. A crucial question will soon arise; will it be enough for teachers to bring
about quality education when they can exercise greater autonomy in planning and
implementing curricula?
In terms of teaching English as both second and foreign language, decentralization
in education provides schools and EFL/ESL teachers –ESL teachers for practical reasonswith both opportunities and challenges. To a certain extent, decentralization provides
schools and ESL teachers space in which to deal with teaching and learning practices. It
also provides the teachers with freedom in making decisions that affect school practices.
This freedom may eventually lead to the autonomy on the side of ESL teachers to
determine what to do with their students. Decentralization, however, might also result in
problems, especially when teachers are not ready to act on these new opportunities and to
deal with the challenges they face. It is very possible that the greater autonomy given to
teachers will end up with confusion instead of improvement in teaching practices that
impact the quality of education and experiences offered to students.
The above condition seems to be a highly possible scenario to develop for the
English teachers in Indonesia in particular. There is likely to be a concern that many
teachers in Indonesia are not ready to be given open opportunities to determine their own
classroom teaching practices. Such a concern is due to the long standing academic culture
in which teachers functioned during the centralization era, when they were accustomed to
implementing whatever curriculum the central government required of them. This culture
was not conducive to the promotion of ESL teacher autonomy. Therefore, when such an
opportunity is available, where ESL teachers have the power to decide what teaching
materials and learning experiences to bring into the classroom, the result may not be what
is expected and may result in creating problems.
Furthermore, acting on an autonomous state is sometimes not very easy. There are
ESL teachers who in fact have enough access to power of influencing the school
decisions that simply do not act on it. The problem here is not whether they have the
autonomy, but whether they judge themselves able to act autonomously with respect to
their autonomous state. How could this happen? The answer concerns the missing of an
essential instrumental aspect needed by teachers to be able to confidently act on their
autonomy. This belief of own ability in influencing outcome will be able to boost the
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ability of teachers in autonomously exercising the power they have to influence practices
in the school.
This paper will provide some arguments suggesting that autonomy alone is not
enough to support the development of a high sense of autonomy among ESL teachers. In
other words, only by providing teachers with wider autonomy will we be able to produce
ESL autonomous teachers, and thus contribute much to the performance of the teachers in
bringing quality education in the classroom. There must be other aspects of ESL teachers
that might trigger them to be able to confidently act on the autonomy. In trying to
elaborate the case, this paper will start by presenting some ideas concerning what
autonomy is, followed by suggesting essential trigger that might cause teachers to be able
to act autonomously. This trigger, which is believed to be instrumental in developing
autonomous teachers, is known as teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. Finally, this paper will
present a mechanism for how teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs are instrumental in the
development of teachers’ sense of autonomy.
B. Teachers’ Sense of Autonomy
Researchers consider teachers’ autonomy a dimension or factor of teachers’
empowerment (Wilson, 1993; Short, 1994). According to Short, autonomy refers to
teachers’ beliefs that they can control aspects of their own work life (Short, 1994). This
includes the beliefs in their control over scheduling, curriculum, textbooks, and
instructional planning. The essence of teacher autonomy is teachers’ sense of freedom to
make decisions. Autonomous teachers, according to this view, are those who believe in
their control on instructional aspects such as schedule, curriculum, textbooks and can act
freely to implement their decisions in their instructional activities. Wilson, in her Selfempowerment index (SEI) to measure teacher autonomy, differentiates the items into
internal autonomy items (9 items) and externally expressed autonomy items (16 items). In
addition, she suggests that teachers’ autonomy might refer to teachers’ trust in their own
perception and feeling, belief in their own internal source of power, self-rewarding and
internal satisfaction (Wilson, 1993). Autonomous teachers, therefore, are those who do
not act because merely of external sources of motivation but more intrinsically because
they believe that they need to do them and are capable of doing them, and are satisfied
when they have done them.
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Pearson & Hall suggest another construct of teachers’ autonomy by suggesting
two sub-constructs of general teaching autonomy and curriculum autonomy, consisting of
two categories respectively (Pearson & Hall, 1993). In their 20-item Teaching Autonomy
Scale, they classify general teaching autonomy as autonomy related to classroom
standards of conduct and personal on-the-job internal decision making; curriculum
autonomy, on the other hand, covers the autonomy related to selection activities,
materials, instructional planning and sequencing.
To give a clearer picture of what teacher autonomy is, the following are examples
of items that appear in one measure of autonomy in teaching, the Teaching Autonomy
Scale (TAS for short). In Pearson and Hall’s refined version of TAS (Pearson & Hall,
1993), there are 20 items to which subjects are asked to rate their judgment on a 4-point
Likert’s scale ranging from 1 (definitely true) to 4 (definitely false). Here are five sample
items taken randomly from the scale.
1. I am free to be creative in my teaching approach (Item No 1 in TAS)
2. The selection of student-learning activities in my class is under my control (2)
3. The scheduling of use of time in my classroom is under my control (10)
4. In my situation, I have only limited latitude in how major problems are resolved
(13)
5. The evaluation and assessment activities used in my class are selected by people
other than myself (17)
C. Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs
Self-efficacy, self-concept and self esteem
It is very possible that self-efficacy beliefs are confused with self-concepts or self
esteem. Not like self-concepts and self-esteem which are more global constructs, self
efficacy beliefs are context-specific assessments of oneself competence or ability to
perform a specific task (Bandura, 1997; Pajares, 1997). While self-concept consists of
many perceptions about self, including self-efficacy beliefs, and is developed partially
from the comparison of self with others, self efficacy is more of individuals’ ability in
accomplishing context-specific tasks (Hoy, 2004). Self efficacy beliefs are about the
future, about what someone will be able to do in a particular situation, not what someone
already accomplished in the past. It is true to say that past time achievement has a strong
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support to the development of self-efficacy beliefs since experience of mastery is one of
the main and most important sources of self-efficacy beliefs. It is, however, worth noting
that efficacy is not the same as past achievement.
In further differentiating self-efficacy from self-esteem, Hoy states that self
esteem concerns more with judgments of self-worth. It is not necessarily that people with
low self-efficacy beliefs in a certain task will have self-esteem as far as the task in which
she is not highly efficacious does not directly related with the judgment of his or her selfworth.
What are self-efficacy beliefs?
Before talking further about what teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs are, it is important
to see Goddard’s warning about using correct terms to refer to this concept. He states that:
The distinction between perception of competence and actual competence or
performance is particularly important when considering teachers’ sense of
efficacy. The shorthand form often used is ‘teachers’ efficacy’. Using this term,
however, can be misleading because the readers may make the logical mistakes by
assuming that teachers’ efficacy is the same as teacher effectiveness or successful
teaching (Goddard, et. al. 2004).
Instead of using the term teacher efficacy, Goddard, Hoy & Hoy suggest the use of terms
like perceived self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001; Pajares,
1997), efficacy judgments, sense of efficacy, and efficacy beliefs which all refer to
judgment about capabilities to accomplish a task.
Although this paper tends to agree with Goddard, it is in fact a bit more flexible in
the use of the terms. This is due to the wide range of terminology differences in the
existing studies. It might, therefore, be found in this paper the interchangeable use of the
above terms. What it tries to hold is that although there is no direct connection between
teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and successful teaching because there are still other aspects
affecting teachers’ performance in the classroom, these beliefs are crucially needed by
teachers in order to act confidently on their autonomy.
Perceived self-efficacy is defined as people's beliefs about their capabilities to
produce pre-determined levels of performance that exercise influence over events that
effect their lives. Self-efficacy beliefs determine the ways people feel, think, motivate
themselves and behave (Bandura, 1997). Tschannen-Moran and Hoy defines teachers’
self efficacy beliefs as teachers’ judgment of their ability to affect learning outcome in
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terms of students’ involvement and learning. This judgment of ability does not only apply
to students with regular ability but also to those experiencing with difficulties and/or lack
of motivation (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001; cf. Armor, 1976; Bandura, 1977).
There have been a great number of research studies related to the search for selfefficacy constructs. The search of self-efficacy beliefs dates back to the 1960s with the
work of Rotter that initiated the RAND researchers to evaluate the beliefs of teachers in
their own capability in controlling the reinforcement of their actions (Armor et al., 1976
in Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). This then stimulated many researchers to investigate
these beliefs. Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001) has proposed that the teachers’ selfefficacy construct consists of three areas; efficacy for instructional strategies, students’
engagement, and classroom management. When teachers have a high sense of efficacy in
all three areas, they will have the potential for being able to act on their power to
influence school decisions. This, in turn, will boost the sense of autonomy of the teachers.
Teachers with a higher sense of efficacy will be very confident in acting on their
autonomy in making decisions and take the responsibility of the decisions they have
made. Teachers with a low sense of efficacy, on the other hand, will end up in a state of
confusion when they are expected to act autonomously.
In terms of aspects of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, some researchers come up
with different classifications. Bandura (1997) categorizes teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs
into seven categories as 1) efficacy to influence the decision making, 2) efficacy to
influence school resources 3) instructional efficacy, 4) disciplinary efficacy, 5) efficacy to
enlist parental involvement, 6) efficacy to enlist community involvement, and 7) efficacy
to create a positive school climate. Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001) classify three
aspects in their Teacher Self Efficacy Scale, as efficacy for instructional strategies,
efficacy for classroom management, and efficacy for student engagement. Some other
researchers name the aspects differently (Rotter, 1966; Guskey, 1981; Ashton, et. al.,
1982; Gibson and Dembo, 1984 in Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001).
Sources of self-efficacy beliefs
Although there are variations in the constructs of self-efficacy beliefs among
researchers, it seems that there is an agreement in terms of sources of efficacy. Bandura
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suggests four sources of self-efficacy beliefs. Those are mastery experiences, vicarious
experiences, social persuasion and somatic and emotional states (Bandura, 1997).
According to Hoy, most of the time mastery is the most important source of selfefficacy (Hoy, 2004). Past time mastery of a certain task, especially when the
accomplishment is attributed to own efforts and ability, will help build sense of efficacy.
People with a good mastery experience will normally have a high sense of efficacy
because such mastery experience robusts their judgment of their ability in doing the same
tasks. Another source of efficacy relates the experiences of a certain model that people
identify themselves with. This is what is referred to as vicarious experiences (Bandura;
1997, Pajares, 1997, Hoy, 2004). The more closely they identify themselves with the
model, the greater the effect of their models’ success. Social persuasion is another source
of self-efficacy beliefs. It is in the form of performance feedback from other people.
Although it is weaker than the first two sources (Bandura, 1997; Pajares, 1997), social
persuasion can help counter setbacks that might instill doubt and interrupt persistence
(Hoy, 2004). The last source of sense of self-efficacy is the psychological state. Anxiety,
stress, arousal, fatigue, and mood states provide information about efficacy beliefs
(Bandura, 1997; Pajares, 1997).
Self-efficacy beliefs and ESL teachers’ autonomy
In relation to the development of teachers’ autonomy, teachers’ self-efficacy
beliefs are believed to affect the efforts teacher put in teaching, the goal setting, and the
aspiration teachers have. Highly efficacious teachers tend to exercise higher levels of
planning and organization (Allinder, 1994), more open to new ideas and are more willing
to experiment with new methods to better meet the needs of the students (Guskey, 1988;
Stein & Wang 1988, in Tschannen-Moran & Hoy 2001). Teachers with a higher sense of
efficacy will also be more persistent to problems they face and more resilient when facing
setbacks. When teachers are highly efficacious, they tend to act confidently because they
believe in what they do and the consequences of what they do.
Although teachers’ self efficacy beliefs are very important for teachers in their
professional life, it is not necessarily that highly efficacious teachers will perform high
quality teaching. It may be that highly efficacious teachers have problems in undertaking
their teaching practices. One possible reason is that because there is not enough space and
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support to exercise their sense of efficacy. It is, therefore, essential for teachers to be
highly efficacious as well as supported by teacher colleagues, administrative staff
members, school principal and parents. There has been research on the support of teacher
colleagues and schools in a broad sense in the development of teachers’ sense of efficacy.
Most research suggests that there is a need for strong teacher collective efficacy to help
develop teachers’ individual self-efficacy beliefs or vice versa (Bandura, 1997; Goddard,
R.D, et.al, 2004; Kurz, 2000). It is, therefore, suggested that the higher sense of teachers’
individual efficacy together with collective efficacy and support from the schools will
enhance the sense of autonomy among teachers.
D. The effect of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs on ESL teachers’ sense of autonomy.
Block (1987 in Wilson, 1993) theorized that the focus of empowerment is on the
need for individual within a certain institution to have a sense of autonomy and the ability
to express such autonomy to others. However, he also suggests that in order for
empowerment to occur, individuals should be first of all self-empowered. To become
self-empowered, individuals should have internal beliefs that they have the ability to
produce the designated levels of performance (Wilson, 1993). This is actually what selfefficacy belief means. The question is how such beliefs can be so instrumental in
realizing the sense of autonomy.
Bandura (1997) states that self-efficacy beliefs affect human functioning through
four major psychological processes –cognitive, motivational, affective and selection
processes. In terms of cognitive processes, the effect of self-efficacy beliefs might take in
various forms. Among others, he suggests that the stronger the perceived self-efficacy,
the higher the goal challenges people set for themselves and the firmer is their
commitment to the goals. Efficacy beliefs also shape the types of anticipatory scenarios
they construct and rehearse.
As mentioned previously, to be autonomous means believing in their own control
and internal power to do certain tasks. It also means believing that they are capable of
providing satisfaction in relation to their own accomplishments. To this extent, it seems
that granting autonomy is the right answer for ESL teachers to bring their aspirations into
their own classroom practices. This once again will be effective once the teachers are
highly efficacious in terms of their beliefs in their capability of doing the teaching tasks.
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The problem is that not many ESL teachers in Indonesia feel that they have the capability
of acting on their autonomous professional life. If that is the case, then developing ESL
teachers’ self efficacy beliefs seems to be the most logical thing to do to help develop
autonomous ESL teachers.
ESL autonomous teachers should be capable of acting autonomously to conduct
English teaching in the classroom, starting from the preparation to the assessment to the
students’ achievement. To be autonomous, ESL teachers need high sense of efficacy
specifically in terms of efficacy for both spoken and written English, efficacy for
instructional strategy, efficacy for classroom management and efficacy for student
engagement. Furthermore, in the context of teaching English in Indonesia there is a
context-specific sense of efficacy that ESL teachers in Indonesia need to have. This is the
efficacy-beliefs related to the implementation of Curriculum 2004 and/or KTSP 2006. It
means that high-sense of efficacy for curriculum implementation is a crucial aspect for
Indonesia ESL teachers.
When Indonesia ESL teachers are highly efficacious, they are expected to be able
to prepare for the school curriculum –designing syllabuses, lesson plans, teaching
materials and learning experiences-, conducting teaching of English based on the
curriculum, and doing the assessment on the students’ achievement. Being highly
efficacious in all aspects of English teaching hopefully autonomous teachers will not be
difficult to develop. The remaining question will be how self-efficacy really support the
development of EFL teachers in Indonesia?
Here is a chart showing the possible effects of self-efficacy beliefs on teachers’
sense of autonomy.
ESL teachers’ selfefficacy beliefs:
- efforts
- persistence
- resilience
ESL teachers’ autonomy:
- control
- internal power
- self-satisfaction
Looking at the chart, it can be said that an improvement in ESL teachers’ selfefficacy beliefs will improve the ESL teachers in terms of putting more effort into doing
certain English teaching tasks, becoming more persistent when faced with problems, and
becoming more resilient when faced with different situations. When ESL teachers have
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already developed such high self-efficacy beliefs they will hopefully be able to act on the
autonomy they have been given. They will put more effort into and seek for alternative
solutions, instead of easily giving up when they faced with difficulties and problems.
Highly efficacious ESL teachers will also think that the control over the level of
accomplishment of certain ESL teaching tasks depends on themselves, on how they
approach the tasks and how much effort they put in. Furthermore, when ESL teachers
have greater beliefs in their own ability of doing certain tasks and they believe that they
have internal power to do the tasks, they will be able to act on their autonomy. By putting
more effort, being persistent when faced with problems and resilient in searching for
alternative solutions, ESL teachers will eventually arrive at maximum performance that
provides them with maximum self-satisfaction.
E. Conclusion and further direction for future teacher development program
The movement of granting autonomy to ESL teachers could present a major issue
related to whether the teachers will be able to bring about a quality English teaching in
the classroom. There might be two possible answers to the issue. They could certainly be
yes when ESL teachers are ready to act on the autonomy, but no when they are not ready
to act on it. One predictor of whether ESL teachers will be able to act autonomously is the
level of their self-efficacy beliefs. High efficacious ESL teachers will confidently do their
teaching-related tasks autonomously, while low efficacious teachers will not.
Regarding the above issue, professional development programs to develop ESL
autonomous teachers need to pay attention to the efforts of investigating the level of ESL
teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs as a basis of program development. By having a careful
look at the teacher-self efficacy beliefs, it is expected that the development program will
address appropriate professional needs of the ESL teachers. When autonomous ESL
teachers are the aim of the teacher future development, developing self-efficacy beliefs
will certainly be worth doing.
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